UNIVERSITY PRESSES -- IN SHORT: NONFICTION; Tales of Tampa

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October 30, 1994, Page 007049 The New York Times Archives

Sometimes the most valuable memories are best labeled "stretchers," to use Huckleberry Finn's term for recollections caught somewhere between fact and fiction. YBOR CITY CHRONICLES: A Memoir (University Press of Florida, $24.95), Ferdie Pacheco's nostalgic account of his childhood in the late 1930's and early 1940's in the Latin quarter of Tampa, Fla., can confidently be called a stretcher. One senses that after 50 years, Dr. Pacheco has allowed the espresso to grow a bit stronger, the Cuban bread crustier and the neighborhood characters more intriguing. After all, as Dr. Pacheco, a television boxing commentator and Muhammad Ali's former physician, describes it, Ybor City's blend of cultures and classes proved fertile ground for mythmaking. There was, for example, the legendary figure of Sweet Sam, an elegant delivery man who owned a grand piano but mysteriously refused to play it. Dr. Pacheco's father also looms large, demanding Old World respect from his family. The author describes the restaurants, social clubs and movie theaters that serve as the backdrop for his memories. His stories are bolstered by photographs and his own cartoons, so the reader can actually see the place as he saw it. Dr. Pacheco is enthralled by the memory of a neighborhood of family and friends inextricably tied together by custom, values and concerns. It is these traits that make his anecdotes worth relating. DOUGLAS A. SYLVA

A version of this review appears in print on October 30, 1994, on Page 7007049 of the National edition with the headline: UNIVERSITY PRESSES -- IN SHORT: NONFICTION; Tales of Tampa. Today's Paper|Subscribe